This invention relates to an apparatus and method for efficiently converting a diverse material input into useful by-products and energy with a minimum of waste and pollution.
It has now been discovered how the design of mankind's two oldest large industrial tools, the blast furnace and the slagging-ash gas producer can be combined into that of a Zone Controlled Multi-Purpose Slagging-Ash Oxygen Jet Blast Converter (Improved Converter) which as the primary converter in an integrated closed loop, can help solve some universally urgent problems by directly or indirectly completely converting a wide range of materials, including in its four modes of operation: wastes, non-premium carbonaceous materials, oil shales and metallic oxides into desirable needed products. It has the best characteristics of both parents plus some attractive unique ones while minimizing undesirable characteristics.
Both parents since prehistoric times, even when their construction was crude, have been safely converting at high temperatures all the raw materials charged in at the top into molten metals and molten slags, gases, vapors and dusts, but conventional blast furnaces when they produce one ton of molten pig iron still produce approximately six tons of an inferior 70-90 Btu/cf. top gas. Further, today's large capacity blast furnaces function well only when charged with premium raw materials and the designs of conventional slagging-ash converters of all kinds being used have never been modernized to provide a method of precisely regulating the conversion activities taking place as the charge entering at the top moves down counterflow to the gas stream generated near the bottom by a mainly hot air blast.
There currently is a need for conversion systems that convert substantially 100% of all the input materials into desirable outputs. The health of the world is being increasingly threatened by air, water and land pollution related to the generation and disposition of wastes of many kinds by dumping, burying, incinerating, and releasing them into the air. Conversion residuals such as nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, sulfurous gases, and chemical compounds with a soluble toxic chemical content are polluting our air, land and water. Nature's live plant converters are being poisoned by the chemical content of acid rain and smog produced mainly when petroleum products and coals of all kinds are burned and the fumes released into the air. Commonly used high Btu content fuels are producing nitrous oxides which are especially dangerous because of their depleting effect on the ozone layer. Crude oil reserves are rapidly being depleted and employing atomic energy to produce electrical energy has created serious new pollution problems.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,814,404, 3,928,023, 4,381,938 and 4,495,054, all are incorporated herein by reference. They all introduced the concept of regulating activities within three temperature controlled zones in the blast furnace by installing strategically located auxiliary tuyeres (openings in the side of the furnace) through which gases and other materials can be injected or withdrawn. The basic objective, except in U.S. Pat. No. 4,495,054 was to produce molten metal from metallic oxide ores by employing less high temperature reducing gas generated internally from premium coke prepared externally from superior coals. U.S. Pat. No. 4,495,054 describes how a blast furnace can be improved into a zone controlled slagging-ash gas producer. It recognized the desirability of employing a 100% oxygen blast but described no method of protecting the gas producer's refractory walls from the high flame temperatures such a practice produces. U.S. Pat. No. 4,381,938 describes an improved blast furnace able to function as either a blast furnace or a slagging-ash gas producer.
This invention involves improvements on these zone control concepts in order to maximize performance of the blast furnace and achieve other desired results.